Predictions: MotUC 2011

I just feel compelled to do this list.  I have no idea why.  This isn't a list of figures that I'd like to have in 2011.  This is a list of figures that I think Mattel will make in 2011 based on what's already available.  Mattel, of course, has made this job easy by announcing the first 5 figures of the year, with the sixth one to be announced in a couple of weeks at New York Toy Fare.

Let's run down what we already know and have been announced.  Note that I'm only listing characters that will be released for the first time in MotUC and not rereleases or the recoloured versions in the DCUC vs MotUC 2 packs.

On the 18th of January, we are getting Vikor, which is the He-Man of the north or some weird character.  We are also getting the first army builder 2-pack in the same month.  This is indeed a busy month with three new characters, or 5 if you count the alternate heads.  February brings us Bow as the regular figure and the Shadow Beasts as the quarterly beast.  King Hssss shows up in March, together with Battle Armor Skeletor as the bonus figure, which is also a quarterly figure.   Skeletor's pet cat Panthor is released  as another beast a month later together with Sy-Klone, who is the regular figure.  The new Weapons Rack (or is that Rak?) also shows up in April.  Catra has just stolen the show in the MotUC circles as she will be the character released in May, with nary anything else that we know of so far.  June supposedly only has a normal character and a reissue.

So we have:

Jan: Vikor, Palace Guards
Feb: Bow, Shadow Beast
Mar: King Hssss, Battle Armor Skeletor
April: Sy-Klone, Panthor, Weapons Rack
May: Catra

I'm not even going to decide which figure goes into which month, but based on the assumption that Mattel would like to spread things out a bit and that King Hssss is probably the all-new tooled character for the year, here are my predictions.

• One more PoP female who's not a Horde member
• A female character from the vintage line and another one that's either a variant or from NA or the millennium line
• A character from the MYP cartoon
• Two NA characters, 1 Galactic Protector and another Mutant
• An Evil warrior from the vintage line

Here are my reasoning for the above:

We have been promised more females this year than last year.  Some have said that this works out to 4 females.  Only 1 has been announced for the year, so there must be at least another one later on in the year.  There is only one other female Horde member that has previously had a toy, and she's not that popular, so they might want to reserve her for later.  There are still a whole bunch of PoP females that have yet to be made into a figure and 15 figures (excluding variants) that have previously been made into a figure.  Hence, at least one of them is to be made this year to spread them evenly in the remaining 5 years of the line.  I'm not able to name which female that would be.  Frosta would be a good choice because she's popular, but I od hope they'd surprise us with something that's a bit more extravagant in design.

Not all the females promised this year will be PoP characters.  We've had Catra, and another PoP character that's probably from the Great Rebellion.  Which means that at least one of the females that we'd get this year would be from the vintage line.  The Sorceress and Marlena for example.

There's probably a third female, but I have no idea where she'd fit.  Perhaps we'd be getting NA Mara or NA Teela, or a little known female figure, or even a bonus (repaint) figure like milennium colours Evil-Lyn or Ponytail blonde hair Teela.

While talking about the MYP cartoon (or millennium line), I still think the Faceless One is a figure that will be released this year, similar to how we had Marzo and Carnivus last year.  The character probably slipped from his previously announced May schedule when Merman slipped (which messed up the schedule as Scare Glow was bumped a month from Halloween to November, and Adora wasn't in the 2009 lineup, but the 2010 one instead).  It'd be nice to have Lyn's father, and it'd be nice to have the version of Lyn that's based on the MYP cartoon too.  Somehow, though, I don't see this as a 2-pack.

The NA characters really need to start going faster if all of them are to be made.  We've only got Optikk at the moment, and there's at least 9 characters on each side of the Good-Evil divide yet to be made.  I'm being conservative by only predicting only 1 Galactic Protector and 1 Evil Mutant, although having said that, Mattel could well have planned a variant of either (or Optikk) as a bonus figure.  Missile Launching Flipshot or Optikk perhaps as the third figure?

And to round it off, we've not have had an evil warrior from the vintage line this year, at least none that's announced.  There has to be at least one to ensure that all the figures made in the vintage line are released evenly over the next 6 years or so.  Stinkor is still my first choice for that figure, but having said that, Clawful could be a possibility as well.

So what are your predictions?  Feel free to comment below.